Seth is back from a much needed vacation, and I wish my first post of the summer brought better news.
From this morning’s Inside Higher Ed, an article called From Tenured to Adjunct describes the University of Louisiana system’s move to fire tenured faculty and rehire them as adjunct faculty. I won’t even summarize the details here–it’s too disheartening to rehash them, and you can read the story by clicking the link–but it’s clear that the financial issues are NOT at the heart of the matter. It’s also clear that because Louisiana law doesn’t require “financial exigency” as the standard they have to meet before they can retrench tenured faculty, they have a certain flexibility that PASSHE also has (because we don’t require it either).
As I’ve said dozens of times by now, in various settings: you may not find this frightening personally, although I can’t imagine how it doesn’t make you at least a little nervous. But even if it doesn’t scare you, it ought to BLOODY INFURIATE YOU that a bunch of suits would treat our colleagues and profession like this.
And again, as I’ve also said repeatedly here and elsewhere, thank whatever deity you believe in for our union, which makes it a whole lot harder for anti-education forces to have their way with us.
And when you get done thanking that deity, maybe it’s about time (if you haven’t already) for you to send an e-mail to your local APSCUF leadership asking what you can do to support our fight. Thankfulness is great; effort is better.
APSCUF-WCU 